protean depravity

image credit: FOTOKITA Looking for really good horror movies to send my blood pressure up, up, up in dark and sleepy days, I've come across the Science of Scare project, which measured people's heartbeats during special screenings over several weeks in order to find out the 50 most scary movies. Before I present you these films I want to state my utter disappointment and sadness that they didn't ask me to be a test subject in this experiment - I would have gladly sacrificed myself for science in this case... Hear me Science of Scare! As an additional point, on this list there are many movies I haven't yet seen, I was surprised to find out. So, I have been missing out on the real good stuff and call myself a horror fan... I'll shortly pitch some titles in the list, linked as usual to their imdb pages. Sometimes I won't comment a movie at all, maybe because I haven't seen it, don't want to see it or have nothing to say or nothing nice to say about it. ...

From aquatic to cosmic horror to zombie apocalypse to science fictional catastrophes, to top tier weird – Tom Over's writing definitely has a wide range and it's outright scary how effortless and at home he can write in each one of those directions.

  I guess my life would be infinitely more miserable without a few little rituals which help me get through life and help me make it a little nicer - like the candles I light in the evenings. Or the tasty, creamy coffee from that expensive South American café around the corner I reward myself when I accomplish something like a job interview or a translation I kept on procrastinating... The picture of a goofy bull terrier I printed out and have hanging at my work place to boost my dopamine levels when things get stressful... Or the bad weather Saturdays when, after a week's work, I visit my favorite former team-mates Caro and Wolf at the Otherland Bookstore to goof around and talk about books. And dogs. I love these Saturdays, and I was there yesterday again. The thing is that, I also love to review books for the Otherland newsletter and each time I tell myself I won't accept new books, I always, always leave with a bunch of review copies of books I wanted to read anyway. Which...

AAAAAAAAAh! The program for the Halloween Special of Final Girls Berlin* has been published, and I will definitely sell my Blixa tickets, sorry, because not only do the shorts start at 7pm, the feature film is American Psycho at 9pm and I don't want to miss any of it. I might as well take the next day off while I'm at it, hah. So here's the shorts selection for Tuesday October 31, 7pm/19.00h - texts taken from the FGBFF newsletter:

    I almost missed to promote my favorite band's livestream on Friday!

Enjoy the shorties, have a great October!

There are spoilers all over in this text! I LOVE the metro, subway, UBahn, underground, metro, métro, metró, metroul, whatever you call it. As long as a city has underground trains and a plan to go with it, I can find my way around and feel safe too. It takes me where I want to go, it shields me from the weather, it provides me a space to (hopefully) sit down and read my book... I feel like getting out that door and running to the next UBahn station just writing this, it's just extremely cozy down there. But I hear there are people who don't share my enthusiasm, especially the dark tunnels and their supposed secrets animating the darker corners of their imagination - notably Clive Barker... whose iconic 1984 short story collection Books of Blood Volumes 1-3 even opens (as far as I remember) with a novelette/short story set in the New York City underground: The Midnight Meat Train. The striking story worthy of the title of the collection revolves around not one, but two protag...

So far, my year is a lot busier than the last couple of years, but luckily there was no need to worry about the Fantasy Film Fest being cancelled due to pandemic this time. Another thing was different too - the movie theater! The FFF took place in the Zoo Palast which, with super comfortable chairs and lots of space between the rows is one of the luxurious movie theaters in Berlin. Apparently the organizers decided to offer their audience that luxury this year as well as numbered seating (To be honest I kind of like the "no numbered seats" tradition in festivals with everybody lining up in front of the door like marathon runners waiting for the start signal and as soon as the doors open running in to catch a good spot. It's so fun to contemplate, especially for me, I like to sit on the sidelines.). In the first three days that I missed, I missed a few films I really wanted to see, mainly Slotherhouse , about a sloth gone murderous, which, I heard, is supposed to be fantas...

“In poetry, the era of the blond, rosy cheeked, perfect Petrarchan beauty is over now,” shouts Herr Professor Prissnitz* pointing his finger to blond, rosy cheeked, perfect Michaela* whose leisurely gum-chewing provides a sharp contrast to the zest and energy with which our literature professor delivers his lecture. While she hides her surprise behind an arrogant smirk which in turn hides behind arduous and rhythmic jaw motion, he ups his voice a note and nearly screams “It's YOUR time now!” To my sheer dread and terror he turns that finger to me, while I, pathologically introverted and socially awkward, quickly bury my head in the colossal Norton Anthology of English Literature Seventh Edition/Volume One in front of me, at the same time trying to control the black clouds of anxiety obscuring my vision and to regulate my breathing and pulse by taking slow, deep breaths. The open page before me shows William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 , the infamous sonnet in which he courageously...